TAC 10.24.11

The Monday 10/24/11 TAC meeting covered a variety of topics.

The photo shows (from left) driver and dispatcher Bill Minikel, driver and blogger John Han, medallion holder and Yellow Cab representative Tim Lapp.

In what other industry can you find councilors of such uniqueness and diversity?


Illegal Taxi & Limo Update

SFMTA Investigator Eric Richholt thanked all the drivers who have sent him photos and videos of bandit cabs and limos and said to keep the info coming.  He can be reached at: eric.richholt@sfmta.com or 510-867-4694.

Richholt stated that he and his partners have handed out over one hundred $90 white zone citations to limos and nine $5,000 tickets to illegal cabs, including three for not having A-cards.

A few of the drivers expressed impatience with what has been done. They wanted a bigger crackdown on limos and town cars acting as cabs. Eric said that it was more difficult to prove that limos were making illegal pick-ups but that he and his colleagues would be going after them in the near future.

These drivers appeared to forget that this is the first systematic attack on illegal vehicles in memory (mine anyway) and is just getting underway. It wouldn't exist at all if Deputy Director of Taxi Services Christiane Hayashi hadn't written legislation to allow MTA investigators to give these citations and hadn't gotten the law passed by a hostile Board of Supervisors that thinks illegal taxis and limos serve the public. She also had to hire and train the investigators. Taxi Services needs a few more of them in order to maintain a presence on the streets both night and day.

Richholt said that they were prioritizing illegal taxis because they often have substandard equipment, rarely have insurance and thus are a danger to the public.

We Can Finally Use the Bike Lanes - Sometimes

After over a year of discussions, Hayashi has finally talked the powers that be into allowing cabs restricted use of bike lanes for picking up and dropping off customers.

Taxicabs will be issued bumper stickers indicating that the cabs have the right to be in the bike lanes for the above purposes. Taxis are supposed to use the lanes only as a last resort if there are no other safe locations nearby. We can only use separated bike lanes to drop off disabled or elderly customers. (Click photo for more detail.)

We are only supposed to pick customers up in a separated bike lane if the dispatcher tells us that the customer is disabled. Does this mean that we have to blow off disabled customers who try to flag us down from these areas? I think this item needs a bit more thought and discussion.

At any rate, we are only supposed to enter a separated bike lane at the beginning of the block and exit at the end.

For more information contact the SFMTA.

TAC Will Finally Be Able to Present Proposals to the SFMTA Board

After an exchange of letters between Taxi Advisory Council Chair Chris Sweis and SFMTA Chief Financial Officer Sonali Bose, it has been decided that Sweis will be able to present TAC's recommendations directly to the SFMTA Board at the their bi-weekly meetings.

This should put an end to a period when no recommendations were acted upon by the Board.

For background see TAC: or, Whatever Happened to Our Recommendations?...


New Town Hall Meeting Schedule

TAC: or, Whatever Happened to Our Recommendations?

Perhaps the most interesting thing that came out of the September 26, 2011 Taxi Advisory Council meeting was the fact that nobody knows why a dozen or so recommendations made by the TAC have not been acted upon by the SFMTA Board.


Chair Chris Sweis (photo) originally thought that the council would report directly to the Board of Directors and that the TAC was analogous to the Citizens Advisory Council (CAC). What Sweis now understands is that "our recommendations go through staff first and then staff presents to the board." 


In any case, TAC is an advisory council and the Board is not bound by the recommendations. The Directors can decide to accept or reject the suggestions, or send them back to staff to be modified.


So far, however, the only recommendation that has been discussed or acted upon by the Board was the recent meter increase.


Sweis says that all the other the recommendations are "in the hands of Sonali Bose," the Chief Financial Officer of the SFMTA and the person to whom staff at Taxi Services reports. But what Ms. Bose intends to do with them is a continuing mystery. 


At the TAC, Sweis said that he didn't know why everybody should be wasting their time coming to the meetings if their advice isn't even going to be discussed or acknowledged much less put into effect.


The Chair has sent an e-mail inquiry to the SFMTA Board asking for clarification but so far hasn't received a response.

This Week's Town Hall Meetings

There were four sessions of Town Hall Meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday. For those of us who went to them all it was just like a weekend in the Caribbean. 

It was almost more of an event than a meeting.

Various members of the press were there including Zoe Corneli of the online paper The Bay Citizen.

Members of the SFMTA hierarchy showed up including Executive Director Nat Ford who stopped by for about an hour. He was reported as saying that he thought Hayashi was doing a good job.

The MTA also sent Julia Rosenberg (Photo) and Henry Epstein to record the the proceeding and take down the driver's comments. Despite the expression I captured in the picture, she's a very friendly person.

And, of course, no meeting would complete without Tariq Mehmood and his impassioned disciples (See photo of acolyte yelling at Hayashi). They were generally well behaved -  except, of course, for Tariq himself who often acted as if he was running the proceeding, made his usual, paranoid personal attacks on Hayashi and shouted down anybody who tried to keep him on topic. Meaning mostly me. 

There were other angry drivers at various sessions. Drivers Murai and Christopher Fulkerson (photo, standing) also defended Hayashi against the cheap-shot, personal attacks that a few belligerent drivers were making.

On the whole, Hayashi handled the situation very well and many drivers left feeling better about the situation than when they came in.